Your Weight-Loss Solution: Swimming for Exercise
YOUR DAILY DIET TIP
By James Beckerman, M.D.
Published July 13, 2011
Many people think that swimming for exercise will not help you lose weight. This has possibly been sparked by the idea that we require body fat to insulate us in cold water, suggesting that swimming will help us pack on muscle without burning much fat.
But Olympic swimmers aren’t practicing in boiling water. Swimming actually helps you keep in great shape. Michael Phelps famously described taking in about 12,000 calories per day, so it seems that swimming can keep off the pounds. Otherwise, he would have gained about 25 of them by the time he won that eighth gold medal in 2008.
Swimming for exercise is a great option for people with arthritis or balance issues that can limit their ability to perform weight-bearing exercise. Water-based exercise can be done individually, but if you enjoy exercising with a group, multiple classes are available. For people who don’t enjoy swimming but like being in a pool, just walking back and forth in the shallow end burns calories and aids weight loss.
Swimming can help you lose weight just as effectively as walking. Researchers have found that both walkers and swimmers can lose a similar amount of weight in three months just from exercising three times a week.
Always look up,
Jamie
MY THOUGHTS
Get me to a pool, ok? Get me to a pool. It's so hot around here weight loss will be the last thing on my mind when I get near a clear, cool body of water.
